To think that this is Herd Immunity strategy

[WonderingFree]

There’s incompetence and there’s incompetence, this is in another level:

Reopening schools for 1-day and assuring us that it was safe, and clearly it wasn’t
Keeping Early Years open
Threatening legal action to schools if they closed 2 weeks early before Christmas
Threatening parents with fines if they took their children out of school
Taking a virus day off for Christmas and encouraging household mixing
Changing the message from stay home too early
Eat out to help out
Delays in PPE
Delays in closing the borders
And now messing around with the 2 jabs schedule

This isn’t incompetence this is wilful strategy of herd immunity achieved if around 65% of the population get the disease. Boris told us he was going to do this on This Morning that we should ‘take it in the chin’.

Let’s see if the vaccination programme stalls too but we really already know the answer.

I was thinking this new strain could even be a good thing as it will accelerate the natural end of the pandemic.

Wouldn't you rather end it artificially with a vaccine? Less bodies in the morgue and all that?

[quote cathyandclare]Actually there's increasing evidence for some lasting immunity. This is one study but Oxford and La Jolla have published papers too. The vaccination roll out will help us achieve herd immunity, but the high level of community infection should also contribute to a drop in the R.

www.qmul.ac.uk/media/news/2020/smd/study-finds-evidence-of-lasting-immunity-after-mild-or-asymptomatic-covid-19-infection.html[/quote]
That study only found evidence of immunity lasting for 4 months. There are lots of people who have tested positive twice with a 6 plus month gap in between.

It's unlikely to be as low as 65% for herd immunity. Measles is 95%, polio is 80% and considered low.
80% of UK population at 67 million is 53 600 000. Approximately 1% death rate in developed countries which is around 5 million deaths.
Even assuming we manage to get half those vaccinated you're still looking at a huge number.

Plus we have no current evidence that immunity won't wear off in 6 months plus, so you're going to have to reinfect everyone again about yearly.

Still sounds a good idea?

Just look at the graphs for Spain france Italy etc. All very similar and Germany had 1000 deaths one day this week .

They are not all taking exactly the same actions , but the graphs are very similar as are the death % per 100000

Never ascribe to malice when good old incompetence will do the trick.

I disagree. To say there is a herd immunity strategy assumes a level of planning and competence that is absent in this government.

@Witchend Isn't 1% of 53 million 530,000 not 5.3 million? That's 10%...obviously it's still a lot but not quite so catastrophic

Please do correct me if I'm wrong, Maths is not my strongest point!

@polkadotpixie
Yes... sorry... no edit button!

@billycorn

According to an expert I follow on Twitter there is no way of suppressing the virus now all we can do is delay the inevitable whilst vaccinating. He seems to think the pandemic will be over in a few weeks and things will return to some kind of normality by June/July. The virus has let rip now, I dread to think of the daily death rate in 2-3 weeks, it will be horrendous.

Who's this please?

@Unsure33

Just look at the graphs for Spain france Italy etc. All very similar and Germany had 1000 deaths one day this week .

They are not all taking exactly the same actions , but the graphs are very similar as are the death % per 100000

No.

They're not.

Germany's deaths per million are well less than half ours. On account of the U.K. having the 7th highest death toll per million in the world and Germany having the 41st.

@duffeldaisy

It's not a good thing to aim for herd immunity. Yes, I agree with the OP that this is starting to feel too incompetent, especially with the strictness in not allowing parents or schools any choice in protecting their communities when numbers were rising.

If we actually did go for herd immunity, though, without vaccines or any lockdowns, it'd be democide.
Having the virus doesn't create as strong an immunity as a vaccine does. So you might get it again, possibly worse, a second time. Plus you're looking at 2.5 million people dying from Covid, plus however many millions more from other things because the hospitals are overrun. Then there's long Covid - which "affects around 10% of 18-49 year olds who become unwell with COVID-19, rising to 22% of over 70s."

So you're looking at losing a huge chunk of the population, with more than 1 in every 5 over 70s probably needing extra care, 1 in every 10 working people possibly needing time off and suffering from long-term, sometimes very serious injuries from it (damage to heart/lungs/kidneys), most people suffering from bereavement of family and friends... it would be unimaginably damaging. Anyone considering it is either not thinking about the consequences or completely sociopathic.

@duffeldaisy I also came across the concept of domicide and it’s shocking that it’s even a thing. But ur right, herd immunity in these circumstances without vaccine, without long term strategy would by default equate to this - but it’s too scary to imagine that this would be a state sanctioned strategy. But I just don’t accept this level of repeated incompetence is ok. The Gov’t knew about the second strain transmission rates in November and yet still sent our children into schools - actually forced schools, teachers and parents to behave a certain way.

I just don't accept this level of repeated incompetence is ok
In the mind of Boris we are mere plebs who don't matter, your feelings are irrelevant as are mine. Boris only cares about wealthy people like him
we are virus fodder

@drsambeckett

Never ascribe to malice when good old incompetence will do the trick.

I think Boris is competent but he just doesn't care enough to be bothered to do things properly, it's all just window dressing to keep us quiet

Hanlon's razor:

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

I think, OP, you underestimate what can be achieved by an idiot who surrounds himself by people who make him look bright.

I think, though, when the stupidity is repeated over and over and over, against expert advice, there is some element of it being at least knowingly neglectful.
Not suggesting there's some government strategy to kill people off via herd immunity, more like a case of them being told that if they don't act now, this many people will die. And them just shrugging and not acting until a point where public opinion starts going against them, so they put in half-hearted lockdown to look like they care a bit.

But they're either too lazy to go into the detail of exactly how to get numbers down fast, or they really don't see it as a priority, and see fewer pension payouts as kind of a bonus effect of not doing much until people get vaccinated.

I think incompetence increases exponentially when lots of different voices are whispering in the ear of someone who isn't an integrated thinker.

Boris does whatever someone has advised, when advisers to the contrary have fallen away (and not until then). At that point, it would be difficult to do it competently because it tends to be too late and reflects the views of a camp that has become entrenched and blinkered during all the dithering. He then has to listen to a new band of voices that are now shrill with indignation, all the while with no mature methods of reasoning and little awareness of how his emotional landscape influences his thinking. He also has remarkably few consistent goals that would align with good governance.